Meditation is being mainlined by the mainstream, from corporate offices to factory floors.
- Eve Savory, Reporter, CBC News (Canada)
The middle-aged man you see meditating in his office in the photo is not a Buddhist monk or a Catholic priest. He is Michael Herman, a senior partner with the law firm of Goodman and Goodman.
Saint Joseph's hospital in Toronto offers meditations courses for staff. Nearly four hundred caregivers take advantage of the training every year. What's going on? How can busy lawyers and caregivers jump off the roller-coaster of work demands long enough to do what some consider to be "nothing?"
The answer is something Buddhists discovered twenty-five centuries ago in one part of the world, Jewish rabbis learned even further back in another part of the world, Hindus learned in a third way, and Christians and Moslems learned later. Meditation is a critical element of spiritual living.
As I travel the country speaking to groups in hospitals and charities, I ask about self care. Uniformly, everyone thinks its important - and, simultaneously, most American caregivers say they are doing a lousy job of it.
In order to care for others, we must first care for ourselves. "How many people take twenty minutes a day in meditation?" I ask. Rarely, a hand will go up. "How many are taking five minutes a day?" A few more hands (in a crowd of a hundred) will go up. The rest of the group sits with their hands in their lap. They have been unable or, more likely, are unwilling to find five minutes.
Not setting aside that precious time means that life has got these people by the throat. The ten minute break in many work places is still, to a remarkable degree, smoke & noise-filled instead of informed by silence.
Work culture can change that. Ritual #3 calls caregivers to take just five minutes once a day to sit with their eyes closed and attend to their breathing. This is not nap time, this is meditation time. If you've never done this, all you have to know is how to sit upright in a regular chair, hands in lap, eyes closed. The way to deal with anxious thoughts is to replace them with a positive sound or restful word or simply to listen to your breath. The way to avoid worrying if the time is up is to take a glance at your watch and then let go. You'll know when the time has passed. The way to free yourself of distracting noise is to let it go by.
The sole goal of Ritual #3 is stunningly simple - sitting with your eyes closed for five to twenty minutes. Over ninety percent of the people with whom I do this exercise report feeling refreshed and energized after this five minute "vacation." This refreshment can last for more than an hour afterwards. For those wise enough to take a full twenty minutes in meditation, extensive studies show that the positive results last six to eight hours!
It's hard to change patterns. Twenty minutes is required for a fuller meditation experience. But five minutes, a sort of mini-meditation, will help - especially if you touche some peaceful center that you can tap into across the day.
Maybe you can find a work partner who will support you in your mini-meditaiton practice and the two of you can go to the hospital chapel, an office or, weather permitting, outdoors. In the same way people exercise together, perhaps you and your partner can help each other rest together.
Meditations, short or long, are an essential element in self-care. Ritual #3, the five mInute (or twenty minute) ritual is virtually guaranteed to improve your life. Whether you choose to do it is, of course, in your hands. But know this. As Ms. Savory reports:
Meditation is now out of the closet. The word is, it eases stress, drops blood pressure, helps put that bad day at the office in perspective.
Wise caregivers will not only give it a try, they will make it a part of their day, everyday.
Key Reflections:
Consider how the three rituals would change your life:
1) Ritual #1, the Three Second Pause, is the across-the-day reminder of the humanity of the other person. Practice it and you will deepen your own humainty.
2) Ritual #2, Three Minutes to read a meditation, introduces the practice of mindfullness and thoughtful reflection into your life.
3) Ritual #3, Five Minute Magic. The five (or twenty) minute meditation, helps you stay centered from within rather than reacting entirely to the noise of the outside world.
Added together, these practices can take less than ten minutes in your day. Engage this trio of practices and you will feel your life changing for the better.
Try this trio of practices for one week and let us know, through Journal comments, how you are doing.
